ROCHESTER, Sept. 27th, 1858.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS, ESQ: MY DEAR
SIR:—On my return home from the lecturing field, in which I have labored very successfully for some weeks, my attention was directed to the following statement which appeared in a recent number of "," published at Albany, as the organ of Hon. GERRIT SMITHSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. , and advocating his election to the Gubernatorial chair:

"SOLD,—We understand that Mr. Watkins, a colored man, has been closeted in this city with the Prince of the State Regency, and has been induced to stump the State, to persuade colored men to vote against Gerrit Smith, and in favor of Morgan. "Beware of him!"

The object of this gross and impudent allusion to my position in the present campaign, is, manifestly, to cause the colored people of this State, (whose rights as men, and as citizens, I have, for the last five years, side by side with you, defended to the best of my ability,) to regard me as an infamous traitor in the camp. For, if the caption of the paragraph be not a downright falsehood, then I stand convicted of turning my back upon my oppressed people, for the "" so delicately hinted at. Now, I think too much of my manhood, and of the position which I have by my own energy, attained among "our people," to condescend to an attempt to prove that in co-operating, for the present, with the Republican party, I am actuated by no other motive than that which has ever influenced me in my public career, viz: a desire to effect the best possible good, by the best possible means. I trample upon the foul and dastardly insinuation, contained in "," as unworthy the head or the heart of any intelligent, honest man, and to be expected only from one who, in the exuberance of his malignity, or in his mental stultification, hesitates at no attempt to defame his fellow men, in order to subserve his own illicit purposes. Well, Mr. Editor, I taken the stump in favor of Mr. MORGAN, not because I am opposed to GERRIT SMITH, but because, thinking and acting for myself, I SEE FIT TO DO SO, believe that, by so doing, I can the sooner strike the death-blow to the Democratic party in the State and nation; that party which is to Slavery, its pillar of cloud by day, and its pillar of fire by night; that party which, in order to be defeated, must be resisted by the consolidated strength of opposing forces. I belong to no man; I am a slave to no party, not even the Radical Abolition party. I sail upon the broad sea of my own Individuality; I strive to paddle my own canoe, and am my

own captain.

But as I, as "," have dared to advocate the election of Mr. MORGAN, while Mr. S. is in the field; I have, therefore, voluntarily transformed myself into a marketable commodity, to be "" to the " Here is a most desperate leap from premise to conclusion. Pray, then, to whom was the editor of "" "SOLD" when , even , advocated the election of Col. FREMONT, though the Radical Abolitionists placed Mr. SMITH in nomination? And to whom will he and other Radical Abolitionists themselves, when in 1860, they vote for Hon. WM. H. SEWARD, or some other Republican candidate for Presidential honors? I love GERRIT SMITH. I admire him as an earnest, faithful friend of Human Rights. And though I have been represented as misrepresenting him, there is not a word of truth in the accusation. In the Troy Convention, (in which it is said I misrepresented that gentleman,) when a member, in the heat of debate, ventured to call in question the sincerity of Mr. SMITH, and spoke of him as a man who, in Congress, was false to Freedom, I arose, and distinctly stated that I would, under no circumstances, sit in a Convention of colored men, where such expressions would for one moment be tolerated; and he was peremptorily called to order, by Wm. Rich, Esq., our worthy President. I repeat it; I love GERRIT SMITH; and though I differ from him on some points, I would vote him into the Governor's chair, ay, the Presidential chair, if my vote could place him there. But I know there is not the slightest probability of a majority of the voters of the State voting for him. And to vote for him, and cry out, "," and suffer the enemy to gain aid and comfort from my vote would be suicidal in the extreme. Abstract principles, without the machinery to crystallize them into practical life, are of but little value.

Now, it is too much to require of me, that I suffer my personal prejudices in Mr. SMITH'S favor, to militate with what I conceive to be the only practicable, and of course, the best policty to adopt in thi squadrangular contest. Ass to "following him around," for the purpose of replying to him, as Mr. SMITH has himself heard, nothing can be farther from the truth. If men choose to appoint meetings for me in the same localities which Mr. SMITH visits, I have nothing to do with such arrangement. I certainly have a right to speak when and where I please, especially when invitations come from such sources as I am bound to respect. But I no one, like a dog barking at the heels of a full-grown man. If I cannot play first fiddle, I persistently refuse to accept the second, however politely ten[d]ered.

Yours truly,

WM. J. WATKINS.